(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Mary Morse Baker Eddy (1821-1910) founded Christian Science. She was raised
in a strict, deeply religious home, from which she derived her lifelong
interest in Christianity and the Bible. She had been plagued with ill health
through her childhood and into adult years. This motivated her to study
alternative methods of healing, which deviated from the then current medical
techniques, which had failed her. Shortly after her first marriage, her
husband died and she began to study a number of healing ministries. She
remarried in 1853 in an unsuccessful attempt to gain control of her son
who had been placed in another home by her family, who believed that she
was physically incapable of caring for him. At the age of 41, she sought
a cure from a healer, Phineas P. Quimby (1802-1866). Quimby had been a
clockmaker, with relatively little education, but he had developed a method
of natural healing that involved techniques of hypnotism and animal magnetism.
He emphasized the role of the human mind in achieving bodily health. Quimby
felt that the key to healing lay in the confidence by the healer in the
patient’s recovery, and also in the confidence the patient has in the healer’s
ability.
Mrs. Eddy (as she is referred to by church members) was a student-associate
of Quimby until his death in 1866. Her health initially improved under his
care, but she later suffered a relapse. Shortly afterwards, she fell on an
icy sidewalk and severely injured herself. Some did not expect her to survive.
On what she believed to be her deathbed, she read one of Jesus’ healings.
She suddenly realized that healing comes not from internal bodily processes,
or from the power of a person’s mind, but from the Divine Mind, God. She
was instantly cured!
Mrs. Eddy withdrew from society for three years in order to concentrate on
a deep search through the Bible and discover precisely how her healing had
taken place. She wished to share this knowledge with others, and to give
them the tools to take away sin and achieve health. Mrs. Eddy then wrote
her main book, Science And Health, later called Science And
Health With Keys To The Scriptures. The book has since been published
in 17 languages, and is available in English, Braille, on audio cassettes
and CDs.